


To Catch a Thief

by FireEye



Category: Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 23:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13064778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: The musings of ACME's top agent, on the trail of the Queen of Thieves.





	To Catch a Thief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [desertghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/desertghost/gifts).



There she is.

The Diva herself.

So easy on the eyes to be so invisible in the crowd, in a sophisticated red dress –1930s Hollywood; pure silk velvet, likely original, likewise stolen.  Matching pair of evening gloves.  To complete the ensemble, a deceptively elegant necklace, the Star of the South Seas.  _Very much stolen_.

But this is no time to get lost in the details.

Sure, the brazen elegance makes even a well-cut suit feel inadequate in comparison.  But the simplest detail remains.

This is as close as anyone has gotten in years.

Moving through the sea of high society party-goers, eyes on her and her alone, lest she vanish from their midst like the phantom she is.  While her eyes are on the ornate music box under glass, close the distance and...

She barely reacts to the rasp of the handcuffs.  Raises her wrist to stare at the metal encircling it.  It’s a heck of an adrenaline rush, which she meets with an amused smile.

“I was wondering when you would finally work up the courage to introduce yourself, ACME.”

“We can do this the hard way or the easy way.”  _Courage, indeed!_   “Either way, you’re under arrest.”

“Come now, after Vienna, that’s the best you can do?”

Forget Vienna.

She’s going down.

“Get moving.”

The rest of the party hardly notices.  If anything, they see a stunning woman in a red dress leaving with a drab woman in a tuxedo.  Save for a pair of security guards half-awake outside the door, the hall outside the penthouse is deserted.  They rouse a bit, but don’t seem overly concerned.

The elevator is within reach.

The bell dings.

 _Safety_.

Closed in the metal carriage, she stares openly.  Sets her hand on her hip, which pulls against the handcuffs, and angles her head.

“Proud of yourself?”

Who wouldn’t be?

It wasn’t _easy,_ not by a long shot...

But, the sneaking suspicion creeps in, perhaps it was easier than it should have been.

She’s still smiling; it’s not the smile of a mastermind defeated.  The giddy rush starts to fade.  The elevator doors slide open, and a simple mistake is plain to see.

 _When it comes to a common enemy, there is honor among thieves_.

***

In pursuit of some villains, that would be the end of the story.

This one’s different.

Not that it makes it any easier to wake up in a Toledo basement handcuffed to a post.

Of the three goons she has with her, two are familiar, in one way or the other.  The punk with rainbow spiked hair is new.  Therese Ya’s reputation precedes her – she was arrested once and walked, but ACME had been keeping a tail on her ever since.  And then there’s the drab fellow in the trench coat from the hotel alley in Shanghai who’d called in the tip-off.

Lesson learned: never trust a shady guy in a trench coat.

Finally, there’s the woman in red.

So tantalizingly close and yet so impossibly far.

Her smile deepens.  As if she can read minds.

“You got closer than most, I’ll give you that.”

A card flutters to the floor.

The woman whirls to make her grand exit.

The goons follow, filing out behind her.

It’s not really worth the energy to hold to prideful bravado all alone and tied up in a basement.

 _What a bind_.

***

The dossier slid across the Chief’s desk.  Her expression was inscrutable, which usually means one of three things: _screwed up_ , or _screwed up big time_ , or _don’t screw this one up_.

To anyone flipping through the manila folder, it would’ve been easy to see why.

“Are you sure you have the right dossier, Chief?”

The basics were there.  So were the details.  There were over a dozen photographs included in the brief.  The best was out of date, but the angle captured both the woman’s likeness and the allure of mystery surrounding her.  The most recent was grainy still from footage of a theft at the National Museum of Western Art.  Japan.

They would never have handed this one out to anyone who couldn’t handle it.  And that was putting it modestly.

In the photograph, the woman’s smile was tantalizingly enigmatic.

Everything you’d expect from the Queen of Crime.

Bit of an ego boost, really.

“Get out there before the trail goes cold and catch that crook.”

Dossier, itinerary, plane tickets, traveler’s checks...

Can’t forget the hat.

“One more thing...”

_Don’t screw this one up._

“Don’t screw this up.”

For all that she ought to have had more trust by now.

 _Can’t win ‘em all_.

***

Japan would have been a dead end.  Chances were good that the crooks were out of the country by the time ACME got called in.  Going there in person, the trail would have only gotten colder.

The better strategy has always been figuring out where they’d strike next.

Easier said than done.  But the trick was finding the common denominator.

The paintings that had been stolen were notable enough, but weren’t the stuff of great heists.  Nothing noteworthy enough to warrant the attention it had received from the international crime circuit.  The connection at face value was kampani kalam, which might have sent an amateur chasing down ghosts in Delhi.

The real clue was in the museum history.  All but one of them had been stored in more recent history in the Louvre archives.  The one that hadn’t depicted a woman playing music for guests, which wasn’t on record anywhere.

Which is how the investigation hit the ground running in Paris.  A curmudgeonly archival worker provided a direction in tracking down the discrepancy of the last painting – a recent discovery and exchange involving classical sheet music – to a museum in Sweden.

A message fired off over the ACME.Net to Stockholm later, and it fell to following it through.

_Seize the day._

***

The Nydahl Collection, Stockholm.

Elegant and refined and full of music.

The obvious target would have been the sheet music the Collection had recently acquired.

They made off with the lute.

At the airport, they were in too much of a rush to cover their tracks.  But by the time it took to book the next flight, they had stepped off in the United States and managed to slip past security.

 _It takes all kinds_.

***

New York City.

The Met, Manhattan, Department of Musical Instruments to be precise.

It was a close clip.  The scene an hour after the crime was a mess – somewhere in ranks there had been a crook waiting for the chance to strike.  The doubled security was a mistake; gave them an even better shot at blending in.

And so, the usual procedure: compile the names, run the profiles and backgrounds of everyone working security that afternoon through ACME.Net, see what it trawls up.

A quick shower later, and a ticket to Vienna is waiting at the hotel desk.

 _Every cloud has a silver lining_.

***

The less said about Vienna the better _._

_Life goes on._

***

The big break came in Shanghai. 

While jet lag was taking its toll, ACME got a lead on a warehouse.

A dock worker had tried to fence something he’d stolen from his boss, which rang a few bells on the network.  Once the warehouse had been locked down and the loot was secure, one of the crooks was traced back to Japan.

Which broke the case wide open, once it was clear what they were after locally.

Several high profile arrests were made, all around.  The goods were being catalogued and sorted for the return to their proper owners.

It seemed like a small step; the mastermind was still at large.

At the end of the day, a man in a drab trench coat had been waiting in the hotel lobby.  He covertly flashed an ACME badge, then nodded towards the side door.

In the alley behind the hotel, he espoused the soul of wit.

He had an invitation to a party in Madrid, run by an infamous art collector – Antonio Manzana, known on the international stage as _the Big Apple_.  For a man who had never been taken in and had no tangible connection to the black markets or larceny circles, stolen goods from around the world certainly seemed to show up in his possession with _astounding_ regularly.  Naturally, he carried some form of political protection and the authorities weren’t invited to attend his parties.

There was a ticket for a red eye flight to Madrid waiting back at the front desk, along with an international dispatch warrant.

 _No sleep for the weary_.

***

To attend a high society function full of thieves in order to flush out thieves requires a certain sense of tact, as well as not drawing the wrong kind of attention.  The _wrong kind of attention_ being _any_ kind of attention.

That doesn’t preclude looking good.

The suit may attract the wrong kind of attention, but if anyone sees a woman in a suit, they’re likely to pass her off as discerning... or eccentric.  But a wealthy, discerning eccentric at a party of wealthy discerning eccentrics is, at least, bound to blend right in.

The suit is upwards of a month’s salary.  On ACME credit, of course.

The hairpins are the cheapest part, a pittance for a pack of a hundred.

The mirror sees clearly.  Not a thief, perhaps, but close enough to make one of the biggest thefts of all time from the underworld itself.

 _Pride cometh before a fall_.

***

Which leads back to the start.

The local ACME office has run dry.

Word has come down that the Chief is shelving the investigation.

Never mind how having to get dug out of a basement in handcuffs does wonders for the reputation.

All that’s left is the card.  ACME doesn’t know about it.  Nor Interpol.  Certainly not the local police.

Simple.  Elegant.  Name.  Hand script.  No logo.  No address.  No anagrams.  Nothing to decipher.

Clueless.

Or...

Maybe...

A message after all, written on the back.  Date and time and location, halfway around the world.  Revealed through the heat of a table lamp.

Child’s play.

Card, coat, taxi fare...

Can’t forget the hat.

 _Back to basics_.

***

A private yacht, moored – illicitly, of course – in a scrap yard for salvaged derelicts.  J-class, built for speed.

The agent in a trench coat stands on the rickety old dock.  “You’re late.”

“Fashionably, I should hope.”

He smiles, quite crookedly, and moves out of the way of the gangway.  It’s half dare, half expectation.

“No backup?”

 _Freeze_.

One step up the gangway, and he’s moved directly behind.

In pursuit of some villains, this would be the end of the story.

But no knife to the back, only a harsh chuckle.

One step below decks, and the engine starts.  The goons linger behind, above deck.  Past the galley, through a door, a decadent room.

Not quite the sailor’s prerogative, but certainly the Queen’s.  Little details start seeping through, too many to count.  Stolen gems and jewelry under glass, paintings stacked high, treasures of antiquity set in corners or on tables.  _Den lille Havfrue_ is inexplicably perched in one corner. The Akbar Shah sits on the desk, a mere paperweight.

“Does it meet your expectations?”

She sits behind the desk, eyes dangerously sharp.  The shadow of a smile haunts her face.

“Picture perfect.”

“Would you be surprised if I told you it was for your benefit?”

It pays to think before answering.  Or at least, mind racing, to pretend to.

“No.”

“Have a seat?”

“No.”

“Something to drink?”

“No.  Thank you.”

Now, she’s smiling widely.  She leans back, fluid and composed.  Beautiful and perfect, in a criminal way.

“You should learn to relax, ACME,” she purrs.  “It’s only a game.”

“The people you steal from might think differently.”

“And what do you think?”

A delicate trap.

On equal footing now, as she stands.  Her stare is piercing, calculating.

“I’ve been watching you, you know.”

“Flattered.”

“Your talents are wasted.”

The emphasis soaks in, a moment before the words are spoken.  The trap is sprung.

“How would you like to come work for me?”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“Think fast, ACME.  I happen to know you’re good at it.”

Dismissed.

“And you should know... the second you step foot off this boat, the offer’s closed.”

_Two roads diverge...._

***

The sky grows purple and rosy pink and pale blue over international water, and one future is split into two.

One option, the obvious choice, sticking to a stable career that just took a tumble from the top.  Hope that ACME is open to second chances, and look forward to the long climb back up the ladder.

The other option, a life of adventure, outside of the rules and there are no limits.  Never was one for the rules... but is that a trait of wisdom or is it folly?

The sunrise breaks over the water.

No wit.

No elegance.

Simply two futures...

...a single choice.

_"Which life is it gonna be, Carmen?"_

**Author's Note:**

> My original intention was to reference all actual treasures. I failed miserably, but not for lack of trying (and there are some interesting heists out there in history).  
> Also, this is the most difficult PoV I have ever attempted. Never let me try it again.


End file.
